A Quick Pop to the Moon
by Mythopoeia
Summary: The silence pressed against his body like pain, and it frightened him as all silence did, but at the same time it was oddly comforting. He was completely and utterly alone, which meant that he was safe. There was nothing and no one for him to love, here.


Disclaimer: All things Doctor Who belong to the BBC, and not me.

Summary: After the craziness of "The Eleventh Hour" and the trauma of "The End of Time", the Eleventh Doctor seizes the first chance he can get to escape somewhere quiet and isolated to just breathe and come to grips with his new self. My take on what happened during his briefly alluded to "Quick pop to the moon and back."

Comments and critiques would be lovely!

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><p>There was a typewriter on the console now-a <em>typewriter<em>-and at first he tried to type in his destination: E-A-(pecking with his two long index fingers at the flat little keys, marveling at the new knobbiness of his knuckles, at the new, inexplicable urge he felt to nibble at the cuticles)-R-T-H-(the 'H' was sticking slightly already; he made a little joke about how even the best cosmetic surgery cannot hide a woman's true age and then had to leap backwards with a yelp from a lever which suddenly and mysteriously fell of its own accord and rapped him smartly across his nice new knuckles)-M-O-O-N. As it turned out, however, the typewriter had nothing to do with destination mapping at all, and once he managed to get the gravity back in its proper place he located the proper controls without further trouble. It was instinctive, now that he didn't have the lure of a shiny black typewriter to distract him any more. His piloting methods had always been ninety-percent instinct anyway, no matter which console room he happened to be using at the time. Even the fiddly new bits already made sense in a back-of-the-mind sort of way; he knew he would understand them perfectly if he ever got around to making the time to examine them properly.

Making the time. _Ha_.

The journey was fast and uneventful but it left him as giddy as a child on its first merry-go-round ride-which, he supposed, was a more apt allegory than he might have liked to admit. He had of course traveled in the TARDIS more times than even he could count, but for his current regeneration this counted as trip number one, with all the excitement that entailed. As the console room shuddered to a halt he was already racing to the doors, his boots skidding a little on the slick glass floors. He fumbled for the handles and wrenched the doors open, and the vast, silent emptiness of the moon rose up like a friend to meet him: pale, cold, barren, beautiful.

~o~

Leaning blissfully outdoors as far as he could without losing his grip on the frame he took a deep, beauteous gulp of the non-air before ducking back inside and heading to the wardrobe to hunt up one of his old space suits. It had been ages since he had last been young enough and reckless enough to rely upon his respiratory bypass system for an extended period of time. Age doesn't give a man wisdom so much as a deeper appreciation for his own limits.

He found the wardrobe easily and the first thing he saw when he stepped into it was the suit from his last regeneration still lying crumpled in the far corner. A good, sturdy suit, that; it had served him well in his last life. The single step he took towards it was almost shy, awkward, compulsive. Even from here he could see the sour, dark stain of his other self's sweat on the collar, the discoloration of smoke against the flame-like orange of the fabric. He would never wear it again, of course; it probably wouldn't fit his new frame, and in any case the helmet was wrecked. He looked flatly at it a moment before turning away, a little of his post-regeneration ebullience ebbing away and an uncontrollable shiver scurrying down his spine. It looked like a thing dead.

In the end he settled on that ridiculous bubble-headed monstrosity that he had worn so many regenerations ago with young Jamie McCrimmon, perhaps because he still had Amelia Pond's brash, Scottish tones ringing in his ears. For the first time he really _examined_ his new face, but only in the vague and distorted glass curve of the helmet before he put it on. What few new details he was able to glean about his new appearance were very pleasing-he was especially glad to see that the mole between his shoulder-blades had migrated to where he could see it properly now, right at the base of his jaw, and couldn't resist giving it a friendly little wave-but he was careful to avoid looking in that bright, temptingly full-length mirror on its stand across the room. He had learned long ago the perils of getting attached to others; his newest, most dearly-paid lesson on the dangers and agonies of becoming too attached to his own self still frightened him. Resolutely he clamped the helmet over his head and tightened the fastenings, flinching away from thoughts of his tenth self, locking them away until he was secure enough in his new body to retrieve them and examine them in turn.

~o~

He took the long way back to the console room on purpose, whooping aloud as he raced along the shining, empty passageways, slid down ladders, burst through doors that slid smoothly open to admit him. He located seven new bedrooms, a closet stacked with tea, a circular ball pit complete with slide, and another room that did not seem to have anything in it except a weird, pulsing blue light. It was shortly after that when he actually got lost, confused in the intricate new lattice-work of hallways. When he finally stepped into the shining copper-and-green cavern of the console room it felt like coming home all over again.

He was surprised to realize that he was only slightly winded, even after all that running.

"I _am_ young," he marveled aloud to no-one in particular, and then smiled self-deprecatingly, running a hand through his long, swooping fringe of brown hair. "Well, and old, of course. Older brain, younger lungs. It's amazing how well they get on." He twirled in place, his shiny shoes squeaking on the shiny floor, his hair whipping into his eyes. "What do you think?" He asked aloud. And then, with a hurt look towards the gleaming time rotor, "Well that's rubbish. And unkind; I've only ever said nice things about _you_."

~o~

He had deliberately chosen an uneventful period in Lunar history, because he wanted to be alone. Alone he trekked across the powdery, dusty grey landscape, his own breath sounding loudly in his ears and fogging the inside of his helmet. He walked; he ran; he took flying leaps and soared light as a soap-bubble through the thin atmosphere before alighting again upon the ground, toes barely touching the stones. He had no clear idea of where he was going, just kept walking until he could not walk any more, could not _think_ any more and, exhausted, sank down with his back against a jumbled pile of lunar stone, head tipped back up towards the sky, gasping. The silence pressed against his body like pain, smothering, exhilarating. It frightened him as all silence did but at the same time was oddly comforting. He was completely and utterly alone, which meant that he was safe. There was nothing and no one for him to love, here.

And yet.

There, rising above him bright as a jewel amidst the blackness and the grey, isolated and vibrant and suspended the massive well of space, was the Earth.

~o~

It was a very little planet.

Not even a third of Gallifrey's size, nor a fourth as beautiful, trapped in its pitiful little single-sun system. And yet he couldn't tear his gaze from it and his brief moment of peace was gone because he had to face squarely now that this was what he had run from, that this was why he was here all alone on the Lunar landscape wearing a ridiculous spacesuit and trying not to think.

See, he knew what attachment did to you. It hurt. It festered. It could, in the end, kill. He had spent the entirety of his ninth regeneration and so much of his tenth pining after Gallifrey, loving it, dreaming about it; he could still taste the dull, sweet ache that had been in the back of his throat as he sat down with Martha in a filthy, scummy alleyway on New Earth and had told her all about his lost home. That had been love; that was what had choked him in the end. He had loved Gallifrey and he had lost it. When he had not been content with that loss, when his love would not allow him to leave it in the past where it belonged, it had killed him.

That had been his tenth self's mistake, hadn't it, getting too attached? To Rose. Jenny. Bowie Base One. Wilf's face behind glass._ I don't want to go._

~o~_  
><em>

"I could," he murmured, raising one hand to blot that jewel from the sky, the blue and the white. "I could leave you behind. While I still have a choice. New me, new plans. I'm not attached yet. Why should I cling to you, when I let my own planet burn? I'm tired, and I have had enough of caring. I could leave and never come back."

And he could.

If not for a mad promise made by a mad man with a box to a small Scottish girl with a temper.

The curious thing about the whole affair was that he was, after all, the Doctor. He was very good at talking himself out of situations he did not want to be in. He could easily tell himself that he had not been thinking clearly; that the regeneration fumes had still been befuddling his mind; that promises made while slightly unhinged were not binding promises at all.

And it was true that he had not been in full possession of his faculties at the time. But what was also true was that he had meant it. He had looked at that child, so kind and scared and lonely and yet brave enough to not only let a regenerating Time Lord into her house but also to attempt to take care of him. He had looked at her and he had promised her the universe. He had promised to come back for her. And he had meant every single word.

Because that last regeneration had _hurt_, and it had scared him into a manic hysteria, a new self that was too young and too awkward and too aware that in even in the last instant of its past self's existence it had not been wanted. And then when he tumbled out of his shattered TARDIS the first thing he saw was a child's face and the first thing she did was trust him when he could not quite bear to trust himself.

~o~

He pulled her apple out of his pocket. It was a bit brown, now; that business with the Atraxi had taken time. He rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers, from palm to palm. Then he lifted it up, and held it directly over the Earth. The ridiculously small planet, with all its billions of humans and their billions of lives and loves, all hidden behind an apple gifted to him by a girl, with a smiling child's face cut clumsily into the skin.

"Amelia Pond," he said, slowly, elongating the 'e', letting the 'n' reverberate against his new teeth. _Fairy-tale_, he had said in a pleased sort of way, as the custard settled both his stomach and his still whirling brain. _A bit fairy-tale_, she had retorted years (minutes) later, that leggy red-head with her anger and her disappointment and her _faith_.

He smiled, and tossed the apple lightly into the non-air.

"Once upon a time, Amelia," he whispered after it. "Once upon a time."

The Doctor stood up, straightened his bow-tie, brushed the lunar dust from his trousers, and set off at a brisk walk back to where the TARDIS still stood, waiting for him-and Amelia-and all the days to come.


End file.
